Archaeology Notes
Event ID 779440
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Archaeology Notes
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/779440
NS37NW 30.00 34016 78278
NS 339 783 Detailed topographic, standing building and vegetational surveys of Geilston House and Garden were commissioned to establish the history, character and cultural significance of the property. Documentary research found the estate had its origins in the late 1500s, then subsequently passed to six other families before it was gifted to the National Trust for Scotland in 1997.
Detailed standing building survey of the B Listed house established that it had developed through ten main phases, from 1666 (the likely date on a much-eroded datestone over a former entrance) or earlier. It began as a modest thatched laird's house, was expanded to become a villa, and finally a cottage ornee linked to a newly built walled garden, with views to the Clyde. The entire house appears to have been thatched until the early 19th century.
The landscape similarly developed in six main phases. It began to be enclosed and Improved after the Montgomery Act of 1770, and shelter belts and other plantings were probably added from this time onward. The next half-century saw the addition of stable blocks (in two phases), a pavilion doocot, a kitchen garden with a stone-lined tank, and a woodland glen garden with some exotic plantings. In the mid-19th century a conservatory, a Wellingtonia and a Mackenzie & Moncur greenhouse were added to the walled garden. The property's last owners, the Hendrys, gave the house a rear guest wing and also acquired a piece of land on the E side of the burn, the site of the Kilmahew Mill. Established as a corn mill in the 1830s, it also saw phases of use as a lint mill and finally a saw mill for a large Clyde shipbuilding firm before it burnt down in 1912.
A full report and archive will be lodged with the NMRS.
Sponsor: National Trust for Scotland
O Lelong 1998
NS 3401 7827 A test pit was dug in May 2003 inside the E end of the earliest part of Geilston House, believed to be 17th century. Between the timber joists was a loose build up of plaster and soil containing bone, glass and some organic material. The further from the front wall, the less organic material there was; this could either be result of animal activity or draughts. Below the joists was a compact plaster surface containing lumps of mortar, either an old floor surface (although it was a bit fragile) or a residue from plasterworking. Below this thin layer was a brown silty soil, 0.16m deep, which overlay a similar but more gravelly soil at least 0.28m deep. It is not possible to tell whether the last two layers, which were sterile of artefacts, represented natural subsoil or imported material used to build up the foundations.
On the exterior of the house at this point, a single pit was excavated to determine the depth of the foundations. Unfortunately the base of the wall was masked by a thick concrete foundation. Probing beyond this foundation located a solid surface at a depth of 1.4m below the surface.
Archive to be deposited in the NMRS.
Sponsor: NTS.
D Alexander 2003
